


When It Rains

by bluefurcape (prettykid)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 19:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettykid/pseuds/bluefurcape
Summary: Physically, there was nothing wrong with Kakashi. He just had the misfortune of running into a magical memory thieving bird.





	When It Rains

Haruno Sakura had known Kakashi since she was twelve years old. And he had known her since he was…well, she wasn’t exactly sure how old he was, since he never divulged that. The only reason any of the former members of Team 7 Kakashi knew his birthday was the success of an elaborate ruse enacted a long time ago, involving Icha Icha, balloon animals, and a knife.

Kakashi smiled at her without recognition, his eyes crinkling pleasantly. From his bed, he looked around the hospital room and the people gathered with mild curiosity. There was a faded yellow bruise exactly the size of an egg on his forehead, an injury that Sakura had healed only moments ago. Despite the stifling heat of summer outside, the air conditioning kept the room comfortably cool. The sweat that had dampened her clothes on her walk over to the hospital was almost making her chilly.

She took a deep breath, recounting the facts as they had been told to her, because she was having trouble processing. “Kakashi and Gai were doing one of their stupid bets.”

“Right,” Shikamaru said.

“And they were climbing Kakashi’s face on the Hokage monument,” she continued and he made a noise of confirmation. “They saw a nest of what they thought was a rare extinct bird and decided to check it out.” Slowly she began to shake her head. “The rare bird has an ability to take away memories. Kakashi and Gai forgot who they were and fell off the monument. The only reason they’re still alive is because you were nearby, playing hooky, and you managed to shadow grab the two of them.”

Shikamaru nodded.

“And how did Kakashi get this enormous welt on his head?” she asked.

“He may have bounced on some rocks before I got to him.” He looked away, shrugging in feigned innocence. If he thought that Sakura would reproach him, he was wrong, because Kakashi definitely deserved more than few knocks to the skull. Especially for this particular mess.

“Shikamaru?”

“Yes?”

“This is really bad.”

“I _know_ , Sakura.”

“Really, really bad.” Sakura began to pace the length of the room, from the window to the opposite wall. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting when she received the urgent summons on her day off, but it wasn’t this. “So unbelievably bad. The Kage coalition arrives today. They’re going to be expecting Kakashi to be making a speech in a week. He can’t make a speech when he’s a drooling idiot!”

“Hey, I’m not drooling,” Kakashi piped up, highly offended. In a lower voice, he asked, “I’m Kakashi, right?”

She was somewhat relieved that he could still talk. All the stupidly vacant smiling was giving her suspicions otherwise. As a test, in case this was some kind of elaborate joke courtesy of Shikamaru, she asked, “Do you know who I am?”

“No, but I’d like to,” he responded automatically.

Her jaw dropped and then she shut it. “Excuse me?”

Shikamaru cleared his throat, but it sounded more like strangled laughter that he choked back down.

“My priorities are a little off here, but would you be interested going out to dinner with me?” Kakashi asked.

“Ask me again when you get your memories back,” she said flatly.

“Well, that’s very good motivation.”

Sakura turned to Shikamaru and widened her eyes. She knew something had been up when Kakashi and Gai had been admitted to the hospital and no one was allowed to treat them or see to them until she personally arrived, even though she had not been actively treating patients, except when her expertise was required, since her promotion to medical director. Her mind had reeled with worst case scenarios, disembowelment, lost limbs, broken spines. Instead, she walked in and Kakashi waved to her, a nasty welt on his temple, but otherwise whole, according to her diagnostic check. Gai was in the same state. Physically, nothing was wrong with either of them, they just had the misfortune of running into a magic memory thieving bird.

“You weren’t called in just to check on his health,” Shikamaru said, leaning against the window sill. “The Council is giving you an assignment. Obviously, we need you to monitor the Rokudaime in case his condition deteriorates. The second thing is that you need to try and jog his memory and bring him back.”

Her instinct was to question the choice. He had been her captain and they had an easy relationship, but she barely knew him. Kakashi kept his secrets close and it made small talk with him a bitch, because he apparently considered everything a secret. Still, she understood the reasoning behind the assignment. Kakashi didn’t have any family left. His father had passed when he was only a child. His mother, even earlier. As far as she knew, he had no relatives in Konoha who could tell him familiar stories. Naruto was often away on high ranking missions and there was no telling when he would return.

She turned to Kakashi, who was watching her with a smile. “I’ll try my best,” she said doubtfully. She glanced at Gai. “What about him?”

“We thought it best to allow him some recovery time before calling in Lee.”

“…Good idea.” This would devastate Gai’s protege. A volcano of emotions was surely waiting.

#

 

“Ha-ru-no Sa-ku-ra,” Kakashi said, as if the syllables of her name were a song. He grinned, pleased with himself.

“Right. And your name is..?” Sakura gestured to him in encouragement.

“Uh…”

“Ha,” she prompted him with the first sound of his clan name.

“Ha…Ha…Haruno Kaku?”

“Hatake Kakashi,” she corrected patiently.

“I would much rather be Haruno Kakashi.”

She flushed, her face heating. “Well, you aren’t.”

“But there isn’t a Mr. Haruno Sakura around, right?”

Sakura bit her lower lip, trying not to laugh. Ever since he’d become her charge, the flirting had been incessant. She figured the magic bird had affected his impulse control in some way. However coming from him, the cheesy lines were actually kind of endearing. “No. No there isn’t.”

He nodded innocently, sitting primly on the ancient sofa in his apartment. His place was unsurprisingly neat, though all of the pieces of furniture looked at least a decade older than her, edges worn away and colors faded. It was also definitely a bachelor pad in every sense of the word. A narrow twin bed, suitable for one and only one. A closet full of the same articles of clothing.

When she entered the kitchen, she found a single set of utensils, a mug, a bowl, and a plate in the cupboard. Just to have something to do, she placed the kettle on the stove anyway to make some tea. One of them could use the bowl to drink out of. Did he never have people over? She tied up her sweaty hair and wished silently that she could at least take a shower. The council had laid down a strict water ration due to the extended drought this year. Bathing was restricted to about fifteen minutes and the mandate encouraged the villagers to go a few days in between. Her stink wasn’t too bad, as far as she could tell, but she missed standing under a nice stream of water and forgetting about the world.

She leaned against the counter, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling hopeless. She didn’t even know where to begin.

“Does any of this ring a bell?” she called out. All of this was a shot in the dark. Bring Kakashi to familiar places and see if anything happened was her general plan. She hated it because she loved real plans. Strategy with complexity. Tasks that could be conquered. Instead, she floundered, coming up with ideas on the fly.

“Nope,” was the cheerful response. At least he was taking this memory loss business in stride. If it were her, she would be freaking out at being completely untethered.

The kettle whistled and she poured the hot water out into the mug and the bowl. From one of the cupboards, she dug up a dented box of genmai and added the tea bags, letting the tan tendrils swirl. There was a solitary tray of ice in the freezer that she took a few cubes from, because she simply did not feel like drinking hot leaf juice in the middle of a drought. Out of curiosity, she checked the bottom part of the fridge too. A nearly empty carton of eggs and an old box of take out greeted her. The inside was bare bones. She was finally getting a glimpse behind the walls that Kakashi maintained and rather than a suave, older man like she had been half expecting, she was getting a sense of just how alone he was. Guilt twisted her lips into a frown. She could claim that she hadn’t known, but that was just an excuse. Her own life was a little more than she could handle. Late night shifts. The constant fires that needed to be put out. Kakashi had been there, quiet in the background, and her attention had glanced over him and determined him a lesser priority because honestly, he seemed fine.

She brought the tea over to the living room, offering Kakashi the mug and taking the bowl for herself. He accepted the beverage then looked back at her and said, “Now, I know I don’t have any memories, but is it customary to drink from a bowl?”

“There weren’t any other cups,” she explained as she curled herself into the armchair perpendicular to the sofa.

“Hm. Okay.” He lowered the hospital mask and took a sip. When he noticed Sakura’s blatant stare, he cautiously asked, “What?”

Even without his memories, Kakashi had chosen to continue to wear the mask. He didn’t seem to notice it or question why he was wearing one.

She caught a glimpse his long, straight nose and lips that lifted in an easy smile. She was almost upset that she hadn’t known before that every time he shot a grin at her, the mask had hidden a set of slightly crooked teeth and a chipped canine that she found unnervingly charming. She wanted to cradle his face in her hands.

Part of her resisted telling him, craving the pleasure of simply seeing him. But it was only right that she tell him, rather than let him go on and act in a way that he would resent her for later. “You probably don’t know this, but you never show your face to anybody,” she said calmly, hiding the giddy urge to get on her feet and dance in her own personal victory.

He hummed to himself and tugged on the elastic strings of the mask hanging around his ear. “Never?”

She nodded her head.

“Is it because I’m ugly?” he asked, touching his lower lip as he frowned.

“No!” Her response was a little too emphatic, even to her own ears.

“Ah. Good.” He smiled again and her heart beat faster.

She was unused to feeling this way around him and she was both curious and disconcerted. To distract herself, she leaned over to the side table and picked up the only two photo frames that Kakashi seemed to possess.

The older one was a photo of his team when the Fourth had been his captain. It showed a young Kakashi glaring at the camera, standing next to a dark haired boy in goggles. The Fourth stood behind them, his hands affectionately ruffling their hair. The last member, a young girl with short brown hair, beamed in the front. She couldn’t help but notice the similarities between this photo and the other one, which was of Team 7 in the early days. A nostalgic smile played on her lips.

“Who are those people?” Kakashi peered over at the photographs.

“Your friends…” she responded tentatively, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

… _those who abandon their friends are worse than scum._

“Oh. Are they still around? Maybe they can help me get back my memory.”

She hesitated. She’d heard rumors of what had happened to Kakashi’s old team--none of it sounded happy. The dark haired boy must have been Obito, who would become the same man that Kakashi had thought dead and carried guilt over for decades. In a twist, Obito had turned out to be alive during all of that time, but even that was complicated and…he certainly was gone now. Of the four people in the photograph, Kakashi was the only survivor. Painful trauma didn’t seem like the best place to start with his memories.

She held up the photo of Team 7 instead, hoping that he wouldn’t notice her deliberate omission. Team 7 had gone through it’s own troubles, but the ending was happier. At least they had that. She pointed at their younger selves with exaggerated enthusiasm. “That’s you and me. The blond one is Naruto and the scowling one is Sasuke.”

“Sasuke looks like he has a stick up his ass,” he commented immediately.

“An accurate assessment.” She snorted. “You were my teacher and then later, my captain. Do you remember?”

He scratched his chin in thought. “Teacher, huh? That doesn’t sound right to me.”

“On the first day I met you, you were very late, fell for Naruto’s stupid trick, and told us that you hated us.”

“Yikes.”

“And then you had Naruto tied up because he tried to cheat.”

Kakashi squinted at the picture. “Naruto’s the blond one, correct? The one who looks like he hasn’t realized that he’s crushing on the other one?”

Sakura blinked and looked for herself. “What.”

“How long ago was this picture taken?”

“Ten, I think.”

“So, are they married now? The hate sex must have been good.”

Her cheeks flushed. She did not want to think about two of her closest friends getting it on! “Gross. They aren’t together and you’re not allowed to talk about them like that. Sasuke is on some kind of redemption quest and Naruto is on a long term mission to the east.”

He made sarcastic air quotes as he said, “’Redemption quest.’”

“This isn’t working, let’s move on,” she grumbled.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt from my gal Lulu from a few months ago! Hope you enjoyed reading and I would appreciate a comment/kudos! Thanks!


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